existence

After weeks of dreary, rainy days, the sun finally came out today and so did the pollinators. I walked through the garden after lunch and caught sight of tiny wasps, bees, moths, butterflies, and flower flies. The garden I planted out by the road last summer has really taken off and although it was intended as a butterfly garden, it has attracted way more than that.

As an after vet check-up treat, I took my girl Ruby Joon to Native Nurseries today and got to see even more pollinators while she drank from all the water features. Captured this beauty (monarch?) proving that the nursery’s signage is accurate. The Brickellia in my garden isn’t blooming quite yet, but I hope it attracts big ones like this guy…

Back home, I found that I have swallowtail butterflies on the way. Caterpillars are currently destroying the bronze fennel, which I plant just for them. I noticed the first few pillars yesterday and one of the plants is already looking a bit thin today. This beast probably has something to do with the fennel demolition.

This whole “Pollinator Week” thing has really gotten me out taking a closer look at the garden. Instead of seeing it as a whole, I’ve focused on individual blooms, looked under leaves, and even checked the zinnias hanging down into the ditch. Not only have I learned of pollinators I never knew were out there doing their thing, but my drive to garden regardless of the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes is back up—I’m energized again. Bring on the dog days of summer. I have a lot of work to do to be ready for fall and I’m ready.

Today was Jetski Kev T. Bronson’s Gotcha Day celebration. His true adoption date was May 22, but that was a Monday and who can have a proper party on a Monday? So today, we celebrated Jet. The wonder dog.

The story of how Jet, and his numerous nicknames, came to our humble home is not a long one, but was a giga coaster on emotional rails.

It started with a death. Jet came into the rescue because his human dad died and the family couldn’t keep him. At 13 1/2 years old, we knew it would be hard to place him in a new forever home, but we try to save as many as possible regardless, so we jumped on the opportunity to take in the old guy. My previous foster, Bugsy, had just been adopted by my next door neighbors, so my home was open and I’ve always had a soft spot for the senior dogos. Those who know me, know I can’t not love a grey face.

Old man Jet arrived at my house mid-March. We had just started our busy season at work and I thought a senior dog that was already trained and used to another dog and cat would fit in fine even with my long work hours. The granddaughter of Jet’s former pop brought him over and told me everything she knew about his personality and quirks. After an introduction to my girl, RJ, and a stroll around the yard, it was determined that he would do well with us.

I pretty much knew immediately that he wasn’t going anywhere. There was something in the way his ears bounced when he walked and his foggy eyes that made me know he was home.

And he did fit in well. He learned our routines and went right along with the feed times, work schedule, treat times, bed times, and walks. During the day he’d sleep in the front room that he claimed as his own and at night he’d sleep across my doorway. We were now a pack of four and we were all happy.

I had noticed that Jet limped a bit and really didn’t like you to touch his side or his stomach. Figuring the limping and touchiness was due to age-related issues, I started him on high quality food and supplements of glucosamine/chondroitin and Wobenzyme. In a few weeks, there was a clear turn around in his ability to walk without a limp and get up off the floor easier. Seemed like we were on the right path to keeping him as mobile as possible.

Then he went in for his checkup and microchip. Our vet informed us that he had never been neutered, at some point he was shot and the bullet was still in him, and something bad was going on in his stomach. This was a Monday They wanted to do x-rays before the neuter, which was scheduled for Friday. Friday came and they put him just in twilight to do the x-rays first. They were shocked by what they saw—a softball-sized and shaped tumor in the area of his spleen and possible swollen pulmonary arteries. There would be no neuter that day. I remember, I was stuck at work where I couldn’t check my cell phone or email, but a note was sent to me that he was “okay.”

After the call to tell me the full facts, we immediately scheduled an appointment for an echo-cardiogram and ultrasound for the following Monday. These showed that he had a slight heart arrhythmia, but his pulmonary arteries looked okay. The tumor was clear and it was on the spleen. Once they had the results, our vets wanted to go in and do the surgery Tuesday morning. No waiting. It was too risky with a tumor that size. Even if benign, it could have burst at any moment causing him to internally bleed out.

By this time it was the first week of May—our absolute busiest week at work. My emotions were out of control and I’m not one to ever show much emotion. I was so scared that I would lose him after he just came into my life.

Two amazing vets went into surgery to remove the spleen, tumors, and do the neuter on Tuesday morning. Again, I was away from all communication at work and having to try and focus on what was happening before me instead of getting caught up in my thoughts of what was happening to my Jet boy right then and whether he would make it through. At his age, putting a dog under is dangerous, but I knew he was in the absolute best hands for the job. And I was right.

They took the spleen with the massive tumor, which also had two other smaller also perfectly round tumors on it…and his balls. So in total, Jet lost five balls that day. But he made it through the tough surgery and was awake and grumpy! I took his grumpiness as a good sign. The next day, another note was delivered to me at work where I was once again away from communication that read, “Jet is eating, but only if hand fed. He’s being spoiled.” He ended up spending the rest of the week at the vet’s office and they continued to spoil and fall in love with him. It’s really impossible not to. By the end of the week, we were all missing him at the house, even RJ.

Jet was home. Finally. Again. He started his slow healing process with a lot of rest and painkillers. Each day he got a little more mobile, ate more food, and his personality started coming back. I remembered his Easter morning face that I captured right as he woke up. He had the biggest smile and looked like my own little pun dog pup. That boy was coming back little by little. The biggest difference was his mobility. Once off the heavy duty painkillers, he was walking without any limp and even trotting a bit! Another new revelation, he enjoyed a belly rub. Before, I couldn’t get near his belly.

And then, on my birthday, I got the call from the vet that the tumor was BENIGN. Best birthday present ever!

Needless to say, Jet has made a wonder-dog recovery. He demands nightly walks now and is so much more comfortable. No more constant panting or barely being able to make it up one stair. He still has some pretty intense arthritis in his spine, but we’ve got the right combo to keep him pain free and moving.

The emotional roller coaster seems to have rolled back into the station. For now. Nobody knows or is promised the future though, so today we celebrated Jet and his official adoption into the Bronson family. And it truly has been a family trip. Without the emotional and financial support of my huge-hearted parents, none of this would have been possible. It’s things like this that make me believe in the connectedness of everything. Jet landed exactly where he needed to be. And more so, where I needed him to be. The pack grew unexpectedly, but we can’t imagine how we were before him.

Jet’s Gotcha Day party included his sister, Ruby Joon, and two former fosters, Lolly (and her mom) and Bugsy. Ol boy didn’t really want to play or have anything to do with the young’uns, and he wasn’t overly thrilled about the doggie cake with the candle, but I did catch him a couple times with a smile on his face.

We all wished for many more healthy years for Jetski Kev T. Bronson when blowing out the candle on his Gotcha Day cake.

There’s a roadside attraction of sorts in Lake Wales, Florida called Spook Hill. You throw your car into neutral at the white line and it rolls uphill on its own. Or what appears to be uphill. I think I remember the whole extended family driving over one time from Bartow where we spent our Christmases. My grandmother probably sent us just to get us all out of the house for a little while so she could breathe. Pretty sure I was unimpressed by the whole rolling backwards uphill thing. I was older than the pic to the right, but I’m going to guess that the face I was making was likely the same.

Today, doc told me I’ve relapsed. Again. What is it now? Four times in three years? Five? I really can’t remember. It’s abundantly clear that my body wants me dead. Unfortunately for my body, it’s dealing with a brain that has zero fucks to give about what the body wants. None. My brain is like the weapon of an apathetic martial artist—nonefucks.

I stole that. Ha.

In March, I went for a second opinion at Shands in Gainesville. It was an impressive facility and the doctors spent over two hours with my mom and me, going over all my medical history and discussing it in minute details. At the end of the visit, they said my doc has done everything they would have done. My mom asked them point-blank what they would do if they were me. The main doctor said if she kept relapsing on prednisone, she would try another immuno-suppressant. There are more out there that carry their own barrage of side effects, but staying on steroids forever is brutal on the body.

First things first though, get me back into remission. So a pounding of prednisone is what the doctor ordered. Took the first dose of the increased regime tonight. Back to the big guns…bigguns…BIG ‘UNS. My mind so frequently warps to Al Bundy, it’s slightly disturbing. What is that about? This isn’t funny. Thing is, if I can’t laugh about it, I won’t make it through. That’s true for everything that’s difficult for me. I can be upset, angry, and grieve, but eventually I gotta start laughing.

Doc says, “You’ll have all the energy you need now!” Thanks for the random bit of enthusiasm, but it doesn’t suit you. And, yeah, I admit that my stock response to the question of “How are you?” has been “Exhausted.” for the last few years, and I do hate feeling slothy and narcoleptic, but come on. What he really meant was, “Bring on the insomnia!” And I don’t know why I just bought that loaf of fresh bread from the bakery while picking up my pred script. Unless I want to balloon up like Violet Beauregard, carbs need to stay the hell away from my face-hole for the next few months until I’m back in remission.

And then I get to try a new immuno-suppressant. The last one I attempted made me itchy all over and straight-up suicidal, but I’m optimistic about this next one. <—That was another joke. I try to stay away from optimism. It’s how I keep from being disappointed in life. Or is that why I keep my expectations super low? Maybe both.

Fact is, either option is craptastic in its own way. Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity. Quality over quantity. If I say it enough, it’ll make it okay, right?

At the end of the driveway this evening with the dogs leashed and ready to go, I looked left, I looked right, and I realized I live in a valley. Whichever way I go, it’ll be uphill. I can put my drive into neutral and hope the roll happens on it’s own, bringing with it the optical illusion of fun, but I’ll still be going uphill.

Last week, a new friend asked me if I had any spiritual beliefs. Without hesitation, I replied, “I can’t wait to become compost.”

I realize this may sound a bit grim, but as a gardener, I’m a witness to death giving rise to life.

Soil. Dirt. Earth. Whatever you call it, it’s the starter of the garden. There’s nothing quite like burying bare hands into healthy dirt and lifting it free. The heft and scent of it. The hyphae strands like highways for worms. It’s a world of its own and to hold that cradled in my palms is the closest I come to communion with a higher being.

It was years ago now when I first learned of the mycelium networks in soil that my scattered thoughts on spirituality became cohesive. Everything is just energy in different forms. From spongy fungus to screeching hawks, tomato blossoms to cirrus clouds, box turtles to magnolias, dung beetles to humans–all energy.

When I say I can’t wait to become compost, what I really mean is that though I’m content in my current form, I know through the natural breakdown of my body, I could become so much more. In the words of Bill Callahan in his song titled Say Valley Maker:

“So bury me in wood
And I will splinter
Bury me in stone
And I will quake
Bury me in water
And I will geyser
Bury me in fire
And I’m gonna phoenix

I’m still up in the air with my feelings about Facebook’s “On this day…” feature. Some days it causes a baritone belly laugh and others it brings forth a saltwater flood from my eyeballs. It has reminded my hermit self of events I had forgotten about attending, and it’s brought back words spoken that had been pushed out of my mind.

But today, today… . Today, that bastard feature showed me a blog post of a poem I wrote last year when I had once again relapsed. It was titled Dark and Dog-tired. Reading over it again today took me back to that drive to the mountains—my place for recovery of all kinds. The poem was unedited when I posted (too full of emotion to care), but finding it again, I will definitely be working it over and over until it’s in better shape.

Not only was I reminded of this forgotten poem dealing with relapse, but another poetic influence may have been my savior today. Earlier this year, a dear friend sent me the memoir The Best Day, the Worst Day, written by Donald Hall about his marriage to Jane Kenyon. Two writers/poets and their difficult path traveled together through the fury of cancer. It is an absolutely devastating but beautiful story of love. I’m not a huge fan of his poetry, but his words in this memoir…oh, my. Theirs was a love that, I am not ashamed to say, I envy.

I may have connected with the story a bit more than I normally would have because of some of the drugs she had to take being the same ones I have also been on and off and on again over the last three years. His descriptions of her levels of pain and the side effects were spot on—things I have never been able to express to friends and family. The rage. The moonface. The depression. The joint pain that you lie about and say is a 6 when really it’s closer to a 12 on a scale from one to ten. The hair that embarrassingly covers your entire body, including your cheeks and chin. The clumps that fall from your head.

And the one that rang out in my mind recently and wouldn’t leave—the rash. A few days ago, it broke out across my chest and collarbones and felt like thousands of tiny bonfires raging under my skin. At first I thought allergies, but my brain said, Pay more attention! Remember, woman! And I did. I remembered Hall’s description of Kenyon’s cyclosporine rashes and how they’d have to rush her to the emergency room, so I called my doctor. His words were, “Stop taking it IMMEDIATELY.” Those are scary words to hear about a drug that is keeping me in remission.

What if there is already too much in my system? What if I called too late? What if stopping now isn’t soon enough? What if stopping now makes me relapse?

I can’t go through all this again.

I can. And I will if that’s what comes. Every time I feel like we’re getting a leg up on this syndrome, another hurdle is thrown on the track and the reasons to keep me jumping are already dwindling—dark. And I’m exhausted—dog-tired.

So I’m going to focus on the fact that poetry got me through this day a year ago and it helped save me today. Instead of worrying about what is next, I will work with my words and lines and keep leaping.

His name is Victor and he’s ageless. Well, neither of my parents seem to know exactly how old he is, only that he’s retired from military service and work as a physiologist. Victor is their neighbor in the mountains and the day my mom introduced us he was working on building a car engine, wearing what appeared to be a cut off shirt sleeve on his head to hold back his shoulder length, mousey hair, and some sort of mock prison jumpsuit with a penitentiary name on the back that I can’t remember now, but he laughed with a boyish snicker as he turned to show it to us. I could see why people were unsure of his exact age.

He’s what I imagine my brother might be like when he gets older. They can both talk about anything and seem to know a lot about many different things, but you’re not quite sure how much to believe. Obviously very intelligent with the tendency for hyper-focus. At the beginning of the new year, my mom mentioned that she liked the look of the yellow FJ Cruiser–it reminded her of Costa Rica for whatever reason. Being a lover of all things car, Victor pounced on the opportunity to do the research and find her one. By February, there was a yellow FJ Cruiser in my parents’ driveway. He’s that guy.

After cursory introductions, Victor wasted no time in asking about my health. My mom had apparently mentioned my condition and being that he’s a retired physiologist that still spends time working with doctors and students doing cardiac research at a nearby med school, he wanted all the details of my syndrome.

I’m on vacation, Victor.

I’m okay. I’m good with not knowing too much. I’ve purposely avoided Google for the past three years because I don’t want to become so focused on this that I lose sight of the beauty in small moments of daily life. This syndrome doesn’t define me and I refuse to allow it to even try.

My mom, on the other hand, has done all the research and still can’t understand it. Hell, I’ve even confused my specialist on numerous occasions. So when Victor asked exactly what I had, the flood gates opened.

She has Nephrotic Syndrome.

Oh, god. That’s not good at all.

In my research, I found that it mostly happens to kids. Boys.

Leave it to me to end up with something that typically affects the exact opposite of myself.

Yes. What do they have her on?

Prednisone.

Did she puff up to look like a Chinese girl?

The first time she got moon face pretty badly. This is the third time she’s had to do a course of it in three years.

That’s not good. Prednisone is terrible on the system.

Hi. I’m right here. I’m standing right between you two witnessing this volley of words like a mute ref at a tennis match. I don’t need a reminder that Prednisone is hard on the body. I live with the effects every day. Hello? Is this thing on?

What was the trigger?

We don’t know. They tested her for all hereditary triggers and she doesn’t have any of those.

So it’s metabolic.

Don’t know. They even did a kidney biopsy and couldn’t find an exact cause.

Well, if it’s not one, it’s the other, so it’s likely metabolic.

Am I here? Do we only exist because others believe us to be real? Does that mean in this moment they don’t believe in me? Am I already gone?

So you’re acidic.

What? I’m over here not existing, so I’m a bit caught off guard with the sudden question directed at me.

Your doctor is treating the symptoms, not the problem.

Okay.

Do your hips hurt?

No.

Just your hands and elbows?

How did you know that?

That’s good. That’s a good thing.

I’m confused as to how any chronic pain is a good thing.

Any sight problems?

Not that I can tell.

Good. How about your hair and nails?

My hair thinned out pretty badly after the first round of steroids, but came back and has stayed thicker than it was before. And my hair dresser says it is quite healthy, so I think I’m all good there.

No laughter. Everyone is suddenly so serious. I hold my hand up to look at my nails myself and he grabs my hand while asking if he can look. Don’t touch me. Why do you think you can touch me? We just met six and half minutes ago. Yes, I’m counting, but my memory is bad and I’m no good with numbers. I don’t like to be touched.

How about her thyroid? Did they check that?

I’m not sure, but I think they did.

I’m invisible again. All I can do is stand here and listen to every single word bounce back and forth and let the heft of them sink in too deep.

We need labs for her T1, T2, T3, T4, and D levels. They tested for Lupus?

Yes, I was so worried it would be Lupus. No diabetes, hepatitis, or HIV either.

Imagine having to tell your mom you had HIV!

What the hell is that supposed to mean and why are they chuckling? I find none of this humorous. In fact, I’m starting to regress to the days before all this when I would faint at any mention of something possibly being wrong with my health. I was well-known at doctor’s offices for having to lay down before they started going over results. Back then, nothing was ever wrong.

I’m seeing small dots of light filtering across my vision. The edges of this scene are getting dark and closing in. I refuse. I will not faint because of this. I’m stronger than this. I don’t feel faint. I don’t feel the staring as I yawn to regulate my breathing and mess with my shirt sleeve to distract my brain. I don’t feel my mom touch my shoulder lightly, letting me know she’s there.

I don’t feel a goddamn thing.

It was time we all walk away. He tells us to get him my records and he’ll pass them on to the doctors he works with. “We’ll put some research students on it. They love complicated cases.” Am I complicated? I always thought I was just Jenn.

Back at the house, I head straight to my room and flatten myself on the floor, looking up at the popcorn ceiling through salt water filled wells. Ruby Joon is all butt wiggles, tail wags, and love nuzzles. She knows when momma has the feels.

My parents are in the living room. From under the door, I hear my dad turn down the television. I hear my mom start to whisper something to him. I hear random words. “Victor said…” “metabolic” “more tests” “research students”. They’re whispering about me.

What hides in parents’ whispers? Fear.

But I’m here. I’m right the fuck here. This thing you whisper about isn’t me. It will never be me. I’m right here in the next room. Come and talk to me. I’m strong enough.